Stop marching; instead, fix system

Published 7:01 pm, Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I am truly disheartened that so many of our fellow Americans do not understand how our system of government works.

On the front page of the April 4 Hour, we saw, of all things, an article on a protest against the low levels of taxes paid by GE! What are these people thinking? Were they asleep in high school civics class when the structure of our federal government was being taught?

The root of most economic problems facing America is not in GE, or even embodied by GE. It's in our Congress! We are a nation of laws, not mobs. Protestors with signs are never taken seriously, nor are their issues. Their marching, chanting, and demonizing just underscores how ineffective and uninformed they really are. To effect real change, these people should be contacting their elected federal representatives by mail, by phone, by email, in person at their individual forums, or by appointment in their local offices. Every one of those protesters has 3 elected officials who write our federal tax laws to whom they can appeal (that's 2 senators plus a congressman, for the sleepyheads). To take effect, new laws must be passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and then enforced by the IRS.

If we have any hope of establishing an absolute minimum tax for corporations (which, by the way, is really what all the fuss is about), that change must come from Washington, not a GE parking lot!

I'm a former GE employee, and have no love whatsoever for Jack Welch or what he did to thousands of my fellow GE employees, their families and their towns during his job-killing reign. But as a GE shareholder, I benefitted from those draconian restructures, and would be angry at GE management for not using every legal means at their disposal to limit their tax payments. That's right -- legal means. GE did nothing illegal in reducing its tax burden, any more that those "parking lot" protestors are acting illegally this month when they take advantage of every deduction and exemption allowed on their own income taxes.

If anything, the protestors should be thanking GE for being the reason that this taxing inequity saw the light of day to be addressed - and hopefully fixed someday -- in Washington!

So grow up, protesters. Don't just march and cry for the cameras about what you think is wrong with GE. Instead, work within the system to fix what's really wrong - our tax structure.

Otherwise, you're just spitting into the wind with no hope of being heard or respected by the only people with the power make the tax law changes we need.